HomePublications Failing The Homeless: Barriers In The Ontario Disability Support Program For Homeless People With Disabilities

Jul 7, 2006Laura Cowan

Failing The Homeless: Barriers In The Ontario Disability Support Program For Homeless People With Disabilities

Principal Organization: Street Health Community Nursing Foundation

Principal Investigator: Laura Cowan

The Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) is intended to assist low-income people with disabilities, but many disabled homeless people are unable to access this program. In an effort to address this problem, Street Health decided to conduct a research project to identify the barriers that were preventing eligible homeless people from accessing the ODSP, while at the same time helping study participants to secure the benefits they are entitled to. In total, 85 homeless people living with disabilities participated in this study, and several interviews were conducted with each participant to learn about their personal histories of disability, employment, housing and attempts to access disability benefits. Project staff also assisted participants with new disability benefits applications and appeals, as well as other requirements for the benefits application process (e.g., accessing health care and identification documents). Findings from this innovative study can be viewed in the full report “Failing the Homeless: Barriers in the Ontario Disability Support Program for Homeless People with Disabilities.”

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Acknowledgement of Traditional Land

We would like to acknowledge this sacred land on which the Wellesley Institute operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.

Revised by the Elders Circle (Council of Aboriginal Initiatives) on November 6, 2014

In the spirit of equity and inclusion, if we can improve on this statement, please contact us. Thank you.